The present invention pertains to backplates that secures a substrate to a computer chassis. More specifically, the present invention pertains to a backplate that secures to a substrate of a circuit card or printed circuit board without the use of mechanical fasteners.
Personal computers utilize substrates such as circuit cards and printed circuit boards within the computer chassis to interconnect with other electrical components and peripherals, such as modems. The substrates may be used by consumers or manufacturers to provide additional functional capabilities to an existing personal computer or computer system. As an example, substrates such as circuit cards may be used to provide standard bus interfaces for peripheral devices, such as audio and video devices, tape controllers, modems and other peripherals. Still further substrates such as network circuit cards may be secured to the computer chassis by the backplate, for the purpose of providing modem and/or communication capabilities to the computer.
Typically, circuit cards and other circuit carrying substrates are made available to the manufacturer or consumer as assemblies with the backplate attached to the substrate, so that the consumer and/or manufacturer need only attach the backplate to the computer chassis to secure the substrate in the computer. The backplate and substrate are usually assembled using manual assembly lines. As known in the art, at least two sets of mechanical fasteners are needed to secure the backplate to the substrate. In light of the large number of substrate assemblies that are manufactured, use of mechanical fasteners to secure substrates with backplate adds substantial labor and material expenses to the production cost.
In addition, the circuitry on the substrate often require a chassis ground which may be provided by the backplate. However, the known art lacks an efficient and secure method of employing the backplate as the chassis ground to the substrate. Mechanical fasteners are not always retained or precisely fitted into the substrate to interconnect the ground of the substrate with the backplate. Moreover, manually aligning the fasteners to ground the substrate requires additional labor and/or equipment costs.
These and other shortcomings of the known art are addressed with this invention.